Less than a week ago, the Astros’ prospects for the postseason were pretty solid after sweeping the Rangers. If they could win two from the Mariners, they would be in great shape for the AL West title. If they just won one, they would be in good shape for a Wild Card spot.
Flash forward five days and four losses where the Astros played with all the enthusiasm of a set of prisoners walking to the gallows.
What does it look like today?
- The Astros are one game out of the last Wild Card spot behind Detroit and Cleveland.
- However, they are really 2 games out of it – since both Cleveland and Detroit hold the tie breaker on them.
- The Astros are 2 games behind Boston in the WC race, but again this is really 3 games behind the Red Sox due to the Astros not holding the tie breaker.
- The AL West? Gone with the wind. They are 4 games behind the Mariners with 5 to play, but…..the Mariners have the tiebreaker, so the Astros would have to win the last 5 games and the M’s would have to lose their last 5 games. Fuggedaboutit.
And how is the team itself doing?
- Let’s see – their co-ace (entering the season), Framber Valdez has imploded spectacularly in the last couple months (1-7, 6.71 ERA in his last 9 starts) and there is a question on whether he will even start one of their last six games. There is additional questions on whether his “attitude” relative to pending free agency and not being wanted by the Astros has poisoned the clubhouse.
- Their other co-ace, Hunter Brown has pitched spectacularly down the stretch, a 1.76 ERA in his last 10 starts and has been “rewarded” with a 3-4 record.
- Jason Alexander, who stepped up in quite a few big starts lately, was taken apart by the Mariners in his last start.
- Their best hitter coming into the season, Yordan Alvarez has suffered his second injury of the season and may or may not hit in their last series against the Angels.
- Their best hitter during the season, Jeremy Pena, has an oblique injury and his return is a question mark.
- Two of their supposed best hitters after that, Christian Walker and Yainer Diaz have fallen on hard times again in the last 4 game stretch, their hitting matching their sub .700 OPS’s.
- Jose Altuve has been unsteady at the plate and in the field.
- The bullpen has been hurt badly by the loss of closer Josh Hader along with setup men Bennett Sousa and Kaleb Ort and has been limping along with Bryan Abreu in the closer’s role.
- Their base running, base coaching, and fielding have all looked brain dead lately.
The bottom line is that there is no hope if they continue to play like they have been.
However…… let’s say either the Tigers or the Guardindians sweep the last two games in their series and the Astros win the next two against the A’s. Then amazingly, the Astros will be one game up on the last WC spot over the losers of those two games headed into Houston’s last series with the Angels. Against all odds, they will have a playoff spot within their hands to control.
Not that this fills us with too much hope as they had everything in their hands headed into the Mariner series. But at least it is something.
ALL THINGS ASTROS 
20 responses to “Astros 2025: Is there any hope left?”
To be honest, I’m ready to get into the post mortem.
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Calling Dr Casey, Calling Dr Ben Casey or maybe Dr Kildare. OK, I’m dating myself back to the 60’s. Is it time to call in Quincy, ME? We should know if the patient will make it by the weekend.
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I think Doc Q was a baseball fan in real life. Call him.
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Tonight I was anxious for the A’s to pull Severino from the game, weary of watching the Astro lineup come to the plate and give one noncompetitive AB after the other against Sev’s sweepers and breaking P. Perhaps they might hit against the pen I reasoned. Wrong! I wanted to see Espada bring in a PH or two to maybe give them a spark. Then I remembered without knowing the numbers, that the bench players (maybe not Carantini) were mired in 1, 2 or 3 for whatever slumps. Can anybody hit anymore? This post was fitting Dan, because my hope is fading fast.
I know this, some of the coaches should start making calls or mailing their resumes before season ends.
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Good morning. I wish the Tigers would be merciful and win a game or two, thus finally putting our guys out of their misery. Alas, maybe they won’t win again, forcing the Astros to continue executing the worst meaningful stretch of games in club history. At the same time, maybe A.J. Hinch is finally getting his true penance.
And I might be the only one here, but I’m tired of hearing from Carlos Correa. He talks too much. Is he the self anointed club leader/spokesperson? I wonder if any of the other guys on the team feel like I do. Most second marriages don’t work out. This team has not done crap since the deadline. Who knows? Maybe “Captain” has helped fracture the clubhouse vibe too.
The Astros have truly played horrible baseball as of late. At this point, I’ll be surprised if Joe Espada is back next year. All season long I’ve recognized that the unprecedented number of injuries are the reason for this team being gutted. But at the same time, even the marginal players on the team are professional baseball players. They know the rules. They can make routine plays. They should be able to put the ball in play with relative frequency. But our Astros have absolutely sunk to new lows. I think our meddlesome owner will really shake things up this time.
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The team needs an overhaul. Who knows if they can even find a rotation in this mess going forward. The patchwork bullpen barely survived the season. I am not happy with a single deadline acquisition. Jesus Sanchez is a minus baseball player. WAR keeps telling me he is a slightly above average player. I can’t find it. The Butcher of Gloveville isn’t just one of the worst defensive players I’ve seen, he can’t tell a ball from a strike with any consistency. He has a pretty far below league average OBP not just this year but for his career.
I can see why we got Ramon Urias for nothing.
What to say about Correa? He tries being a “leader” to hard. Most of this roster doesn’t know you like that Jack. Just shut up and play ball. I am certain of one thing, when this shine wears off his excitement he will not post a near .800 OPS. He just isn’t that guy anymore.
We (allegedly) blew the cap for this mess. We didn’t need another third baseman. We have one. And he is better. Now all that might work out because our glass DH can’t stay in the lineup anyway. That new 60M first baseman? Looks a lot closer to the last 60M first baseman than you hoped for. Our HoF second baseman is in the twilight of his career, where like our last HoF second baseman is starting to sit on pitches and end his career chasing 3000 by hitting .250-.260 and pulling the occasional bad pitch into the Crawfords. Our SS is a big bodied dude whose muscles have muscles that seem to be getting more and more “strains.” We have arguably the worst starting OF of any over the tax threshold team in tax threshold history. And our catcher is a mess at the plate. All that talent keeps his head above water, but he doesn’t really seem to care what he is swinging at. I’m still convinced Baker and Maldy poisoned his mind and left town having him believe that spending all his time preparing for catching duties was far more important than any offense. The problem is he never was nor never will be Maldy; let him be Yainer.
Glass half empty guy, reporting for duty.
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Thoughts –
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Dan, I’m trying to hold on until things are official. But remarkably, if Detroit goes 0-4, all the Astros have to do is get a 2-2 split to keep on playing for the time being. I wonder if the guys in the clubhouse would rather get home.
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The other two players we sent in the Sanchez trade:
Chase Jaworsky is hitting .154 BA/ .340 OBP/ .571 OPS as a 20 y.o. at A+ ball
But 19 y.o. Esmil Valencia is hitting .327 BA/ .367 OBP/ .877 OPS with Miami’s A level team.
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Hoping the universe will prove me wrong let’s assume the Astros are toast and can start booking their tee times. Normally I gripe that we can look back at a couple games we gave away in this situation as the reason, but that’s giving the team too much credit. The reason we’re in this boat is that we’re currently 22-26 against our own division…which is the second worst division in baseball. The Mariners are 34-18.
While I want to say Crane was wrong to bring back Correa the truth is I’m glad he cares enough about trying to reach the postseason to make a bad trade or two. It’s actually not bad on paper given how much the Twins are taking on. The aspect that’s bad is now we have to figure out what to do with Isaac Paredes and it probably involves trading him. Of the players I would not want to trade on the team he’s certainly in the top five. The Sanchez trade certainly didn’t increase our win total. The Urias trade didn’t increase our win total and presents budgetary problems for next year. At the end of the day I’m just glad they didn’t pull the trigger on bringing Justin Verlander back.
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Overall agree Devin. I did look back at JV’s numbers since the deadline. In 10 starts he is 2-3, but has a 2.86 ERA and 1.200 WHIP. But unless they were sitting Framber, not sure how much extra he would have given us. But would have done us better than trading for Sanchez or Urias.
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Under no circumstances should they trade Issac P, who is what, 26 yrs old vs 31 yr old Correa with medical issues. Without getting to far ahead I see a future where a certain 1st baseman might get traded but not Parades I hope
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As the Astros end the top of the 1st with a lead, TK mentioned the craziest statement in the middle of a playoff chase – “and the Astros have their first lead in a week…….” OOF.
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Well Framber took out his hair extensions for his big game. So far so good and a 7 run lead? Meaningful baseball has been extended. I’m not sure I have the patience for this. I’m almost annoyed.
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It’s certainly a razor thin margin. We need to sweep the Angels and see either Detroit (@BOS) or Cleveland (v TEX) lose 2/3 thanks to those pesky tie breakers. I’m assuming neither DET or CLE gets swept, but if that happens we could advance with only 2 wins. There’s also the slim chance of BOS losing their last 4 and letting us in… Unfortunately, they also have the tie breaker against us. Maybe we should have won a few more of those games…
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Good morning. I’m a bit disgusted. Framber mailed it in for the better part of two months, basically giving the finger to his teammates and organization, tossing the season. Then he comes out yesterday, seemingly with a new image, when it’s all but too late. That’s total BS. If the Astros entertain re-signing Valdez, I’m going to have a relationship problem of my own with the organization.
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Absolutely daveb, I hope other teams make their offers based on when the Astros needed Framber the most – not on the too little – too late time frame.
I understand there are times when all of us have problems with our workplace and/or management. But we still do our jobs. A guy making Framber’s kind of dough even before his new contract needs to suck it up.
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Earlier I was looking at the offensive stats for some teams after hearing the Mets have two 30-30 players. First off, how in the world does the league let Juan Soto steal 30 bases? Second, the HR output is kind of crazy this year
Yankees 266 – (Judge – 51, Grisham – 34, Chisholm, Jr. – 31, Bellinger – 29, Rice – 24, Wells – 21, Stanton – 21, Volpe – 19)
Dodgers 239 – (Ohtani – 54, Pages – 27, Teoscar – 25, Freeman – 23, Betts – 20, Muncy – 19, Smith – 17)
Seattle 237 (Raleigh – 60, Julio – 32, Arozarena – 27, Polanco – 25, Suarez – 13) Cubs 214 (Busch – 31, Pete CA – 29, Suzuki – 29, Swanson – 24, Happ – 23, Tucker – 22, Kelly – 17)
Mets 222 (Soto – 43, Alonso – 37, Lindor – 30, Nimmo – 25, Baty – 18, Vientos – 17)
Phillies 210 (Schwarber – 56, Harper – 27, Castellanos – 17, Kepler – 17, Turner – 15) Red Sox 184 (Story – 25, Abreu – 22, Bregman – 18, Duran – 16, Rafaela – 16, Devers – 15*)
Astros 173 (Altuve – 26, Walker – 24, Paredes – 20, Diaz – 19, Pena – 17).
Brewers 164 (Yelich – 29, Chourio – 20, Turang – 18, Contreras – 17)
Padres 147 (Machado – 26, Tatis Jr – 23, Sheets – 19, Merrill – 16)
-* 49 on the season counting NL homers too
-** In only 73 AL games played…up to 34 counting NL homers too
Obviously the Padres ballpark brings their numbers down, but I was surprised given their record to see how much lower than the Yankees they are. Houston would be higher with Yordan, but I think we all expected a better output given our ballpark. The Phillies’ number shocks me – their stadium is a joke. Same thing with Milwaukee. How will that style fare in the playoffs?
The other thing I was looking at was Altuve’s chase of 3000. He’s 613 hits away after putting up 155 so far this year and turning 35 this May. He probably needs a stronger 2026 season to have a chance.
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Good morning. As long as I’m around, this will always remain a memorable season. Losing Yordan, Pena and Jake over the past 10 or so days didn’t even phase me. It was just last night that I realized that’s a third of our lineup.
What are you going to do?
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I will always follow and cheer for the Astros. It is just a lot better when they are winning.
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